The Byers Lab: Floral scent and other floral signals and their role in flowering plant evolution

Group Leader: Kelsey J.R.P. Byers

Three panels show photos of plants and their pollinators: a bumblebee visits a Lamiaceae plant, a hummingbird visits a Heliconia plant, and a skipper butterfly visits a Lantana plant


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Lab Members

Group Leader: Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, PhD

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Kelsey (any/all pronouns) completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology at MIT in 2007 and a PhD in Mimulus (monkeyflower) evolutionary genetics at the University of Washington, Seattle with H.D. "Toby" Bradshaw, Jr. and Jeffrey Riffell in 2014. She then was a PLANT FELLOWS Postdoctoral Fellow (2014-2017) in the lab of Florian Schiestl and Philipp Schlüter at the University of Zürich, followed by a postition as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge (2017-2020) with Chris Jiggins. She began her own lab at the John Innes Center in 2020.

Research assistant: Mikhaela Neequaye, PhD

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Mikhaela (she/her) completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Leicester and a PhD in broccoli secondary metabolite genetics at the John Innes Centre and Quadram Institute with Lars Østergaard and Richard Mithen in 2019. She joined the Byers Lab in 2020. Mikhaela can be found on Twitter @MNeequayeJIC and at JIC here.

Postdoctoral researcher: Katie Wenzell, PhD

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Katie (she/her) completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Oklahoma and a PhD in Castilleja (paintbrush) evolutionary ecology at Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden with Krissa Skogen and Jeremie Fant in 2021 (read Katie's thesis here). She joined the Byers Lab in 2021. Katie can be found on Twitter @k_wenzell and at JIC here.

Lab Alums

Undergraduate placement students

Becca Collier (she/her) is an undergraduate student from the University of Birmingham who completed a Year in Industry placement in the Byers Lab (2021-2022).


Twitter logoKelsey on Twitter Reach Kelsey by email: Kelsey.Byers (at) jic.ac.uk
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